Urging the Passage of the Bipartisan Campus Accountability and Safety Act That Ensures Colleges and Universities Protect their Students from Sexual assaults
Adopted at the 84th Annual Meeting in 2016
WHEREAS, each year tens of thousands of women who attend college in the U.S. become survivors of sexual assault, yet colleges and universities lack any real incentive to investigate these incidents or comply with federal reporting standards; and
WHEREAS, 80 percent of rape, stalking, and sexual assault victimizations against female students ages 18-24 go unreported to police; and
WHEREAS, most cases of campus sexual assault are not instances of "stranger rape;" but are rather acts of dating violence or intimate partner violence; 78 percent of campus sexual assaults are perpetrated by someone the victim knows; and
WHEREAS, it was found that 73 percent of institutions of higher education have no protocols on how the institution and law enforcement work together to respond to campus sexual violence or stalking; and law enforcement officials at 30 percent of institutions of higher education receive no training on how to respond to reports of sexual violence; and
WHEREAS, confidential reporting options facilitate reporting of campus sexual assault to police and campus authorities; and
WHEREAS, under Title IX, colleges and universities have a legal obligation to provide an environment that is free from sexual harassment, which includes sexual violence; and the federal Clery Act requires disclosure of crime statistics to the federal government; and
WHEREAS, due to little enforcement colleges and universities have a perverse incentive to under-report the cases of sexual violence and stalking that occur on their campuses and ignore the problem; and
WHEREAS, according to a 2014 survey, 41 percent of colleges and universities surveyed had not conducted an investigation of a sexual assault complaint in the last five years; and
WHEREAS, in those instances where a survivor of sexual assault chooses to go through a student disciplinary process, it is often done in an inconsistent and uninformed manner with untrained personnel and/or students being asked to consider serious accusations without the proper training; and
WHEREAS, survivors of sexual violence and stalking on campuses are often not provided with access to victim-centered, trauma-informed advocacy or services; and
WHEREAS, the system is broken and we must take action to fix it; and
WHEREAS, a bipartisan congressional coalition havs introduced legislation to flip the incentives so that colleges and universities will protect students; and
WHEREAS, the Campus Accountability and Safety Act (S.590/HR.1310) introduced by Senator Claire McCaskill (MO) and Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (NY) will increase support services to empower survivors, improve training for campus personnel, standardize disciplinary proceedings on campuses, require schools to be more transparent and require all schools to administer a confidential survey with published results, hold colleges and universities accountable for addressing and reporting assault cases, and require better coordination with local law enforcemen,
NOW, THEREORE, BE IT RESOLVED that The United States Conference of Mayors urges Congress to quickly pass, and for the President to sign into law, the Campus Accountability and Safety Act, in order to reform the way colleges and universities report and address cases of sexual violence and stalking so that survivors are guaranteed victim-centered and trauma-informed advocacy and services, survivors and the accused have access to a fair investigative and disciplinary process, students and staff understand their rights, options, and responsibilities, and students and parents have access to new campus safety data.